Back to Index

Zimbabwe exam body runs out of funds to mark exams
ZimOnline
October 24, 2007

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2210

HARARE - The Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) says it not sure if the 2007 examinations currently going on will be marked as it does not have the money required.

ZIMSEC director Happy Ndanga told a closed parliamentary committee on 10 October, minutes of which were seen by ZimOnline yesterday, that about $1.7 trillion was needed to mark Grade Seven, Ordinary and Advanced Level examinations.

"We asked for a budget of $1.5 trillion and got something which was not quite anything. When we asked for a supplementary budget we were given $630.6 billion - just a little over 50 percent. We cannot run an examination at 50 percent capacity. It must be 100 percent," he said.

He warned that lack of resources continued to affect marking standards for examinations as most markers were leaving the country for greener pastures. Ndanga said the examinations body was forced to import markers from other countries.

"We envisage a situation for this examination where the examiners may be very much in demand because they have left in large numbers," said the ZIMSEC chief, adding that the examiners must be paid reasonable rates.

"It is not proper for an examination to be run with people where you have scrapped rock bottom of the available resources," he said.

ZIMSEC received only $1 billion from examination fees that are pegged at $500 per subject. Equipment at the examinations body was obsolete and printers were also failing to print question papers.

Ndanga revealed that scanners used by the examinations body to "read answers" for multiple-choice questions were now obsolete.

"The manufacturer who sold them to us has stopped manufacturing (such scanners) and we cannot even get spare parts for them. Unless we have a scanner which can mark the whole paper at a fraction of a second, if we use manual marking it will take ages, costs a lot of money and it will require a lot of labour," said Ndanga.

ZIMSEC also wants armed security at examinations centres and to accompany trucks distributing examination papers to reduce cases of fraud and other irregularities.

"Examinations are very sensitive and important to depend on one authority. What we want is shared responsibility . . . Every year we receive very large numbers of cases of irregularities and we are trying to obviate these cases by ensuring that there is good security all round," said Ndanga.

He disclosed that in 2005 a truckload of question papers printed in South Africa was hijacked between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

"At one time in 2005 a whole truckload of question papers printed in South Africa was hijacked somewhere between Johannesburg and Pretoria and we lost the whole cargo to criminals," said Ndanga.

Zimbabwean examinations have been riddled by irregularities with several cases of leakages reported.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP